


Knows You (Like They Know You)

by wisdomofme



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: F/M, Five Year Skip, No Dimitri because they think he's dead, Trauma Children, alcohol consumption, let Felix say fuck
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-03
Updated: 2020-08-03
Packaged: 2021-03-06 06:27:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,943
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25688806
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wisdomofme/pseuds/wisdomofme
Summary: Felix turns 21 in the middle of a war. His friends are still here to make his life a waking hell.ALTERNATIVELYFelix, Ingrid and Sylvain get drunk.
Relationships: Annette Fantine Dominic/Felix Hugo Fraldarius, Felix Hugo Fraldarius & Ingrid Brandl Galatea & Sylvain Jose Gautier
Comments: 2
Kudos: 51





	Knows You (Like They Know You)

On the night of Felix’s 21st birthday, Ingrid and Sylvain showed up on his front doorstep. They hadn’t been invited and they hadn’t sent word ahead of their arrival; it irritated Felix to no end. He decided that he was just going glare at them until either his birthday was over or they left. 

That was until Ingrid pulled out three glasses from behind her back and Sylvain materialized a bottle of whiskey with a bright red ribbon around the neck. Felix felt his lips twitch.

“Now that’s a party,” he muttered and showed them into Fraldarius manor.

Two hours later found the three of them sprawled out across each other in the rooftop garden. Sylvain leaning against the bottom of the garden bench, Ingrid’s legs thrown over his lap and Felix laying beside her, his legs stretched out past her head. His head was fuzzy from the three shots they’d each done the moment they got up here and then the other two drinks he’d consumed in the two hours they had been talking. At least the winter chill didn’t bother him anymore, the alcohol doing it’s part in keeping him warm. Ingrid had spent the last ten minutes recounting her latest disaster of a betrothal offer, but at least this one hadn’t attempted to kidnap her.

“Wait- wait,” Sylvain interrupted her, his hands grabbing hold of her calves in order to catch her attention. “He said what?”

“He said he wanted me to stop training!” Ingrid’s hands shot in the air to punctuate her words. “Can you believe that? He said that I was ‘too muscular’ and that I would need to ‘tone down the riding’ as well if I wanted to be betrothed to him.” She snorted. “As if we weren’t in the middle of a war.”

“Did you remind him that he was the one that wanted to be betrothed to you?” Felix asked, an irritated frown creasing his forehead.

“I didn’t have to, thank Seiros,” Ingrid sighed, her hands collapsing back against her chest. “My father may not want me to be a knight but he does expect me to be able to defend myself.”

Sylvain scoffed. “That must be the first intelligent thing that man has ever said.”

Ingrid sat up, her lips pulling down into what would be described as a pout on any girl that wasn’t Ingrid, and punched Sylvain in the shoulder. He recoiled, hissing as he rubbed the growing bruise.

“What the fuck was that for?”

“Don’t be disrespectful to my father,” she snapped. 

“Like he doesn’t deserve it,” Sylvain grumbled. “He’s no better than my old man.”

Ingrid looked like she was gearing up to hit him again but Felix perked up at the comment and interrupted her. “Oh? What’s he done this time?”

Ingrid laid back down, her expression morphing into one of neutral interest as she shared a glance with Felix. Sylvain groaned and rolled his neck, rubbing a hand over his eyes as he did. 

“It’s hardly even worth mentioning,” he muttered, looking up into the night sky as he spoke and a small cloud of mist floating from his lips. “Same poison as Ingrid.”

“Betrothal letters?” Ingrid asked, breathless disbelief colouring her tone. “You’re joking. I thought your father said he didn’t care for them.”

“He’s changed his mind,” he said.

Sylvain’s eyes darted down to Ingrid while she was too busy taking a gulp from her glass to notice. The corner of his lips tightened for a moment until his gaze skipped over to Felix. With the light buzz coursing through his system Felix struggled to get a read on his friend, but Sylvain interrupted his thoughts before he could get too far.

“What about you Felix? Surely you’re father’s getting antsy with you being the sole heir to the Fraldarius line. Got any fun betrothal stories to share?”

Felix tilted his head back and scowled at Sylvain but the effect was ruined by Ingrid snorting loudly between them.

“Yeah Felix,” she said, her voice lilting as she turned her head to look at him. Her eyes glinted with mirth and Felix realized with growing horror that sometimes knowledge could be far deadlier than any weapon. Especially when wielded by Ingrid Brandl Galatea. “How about those ‘betrothal’ letters?”

Felix could do nothing but glare at Ingrid, hoping that he could somehow intimidate her into dropping it. But it had never worked before and it wasn’t going to work now.

“Wait, what’s going on?” Sylvain dropped his slouch and leant forwards so he could look down on the pair of them. “What am I missing? Did Felix actually get a betrothal letter?”

Ingrid cackled as Felix let his head roll back to look up at the stars and wished that a hole would open in the night sky and swallow him. Preferably like what had happened with Professor Byleth. It had been pretty cool.

“I can’t believe you still haven’t replied to her,” Ingrid said, her smile slowly transforming into a stern frown as she scolded him. “She still asks me how you’re going, you know. You’re worrying her for no reason.”

“Ingrid!” Sylvain whined and resorted to shaking her legs. “Tell me!”

Felix fumbled for the half full glass by his side and sat up so he could drain it in a single gulp, the whiskey burning his throat, but not enough to stop him thinking about what was happening as Ingrid sat up, all her focus on Sylvain.

“You know how Annette checks in with everyone?” Ingrid asked Sylvain and he immediately jumped to a conclusion.

His head snapped to Felix’s back and he cried out, “Annette sent you a betrothal letter?!”

Ingrid had grabbed her glass again and was mid sip as he shouted. She nearly choked on the whiskey and had to slap her hand over her mouth in order to prevent herself from spraying the drink all over Sylvain. The whiskey bubbled against her hand and dribbled down her chin nonetheless before she began howling with laughter.

Felix slammed his glass back down on the grass beside him and whipped his head towards the pair. “No!”

“Aw, what?” Sylvain seemed to deflate at the flat rejection. “Then what’s this about?”

Ingrid sniffed and rubbed the remains of the liquid off her face with the back of her hand. “Felix won’t respond to her.”

Sylvain frowned. “I knew you were cold Felix but I didn’t realize you were heartless. Annie’s just trying to be nice.”

Felix gritted his teeth and looked away from the both of them while Ingrid laced her fingers together and watched Sylvain expectantly.

“Why not just send her a letter letting her know you’re okay? It doesn’t have to be hard, you write letters to me and Ingrid all the ti- Holy Seiros!”

Felix glanced at Sylvain and immediately regretted it. The man looked like someone had just handed him a thousand gold pieces.

“You like Annette!” Sylvain gasped and Ingrid let out a delighted squeal.

This was the worst birthday of Felix’s entire life.

Sylvain’s attention snapped back to Ingrid, betrayal written across his face. “When did you find out? Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Cause it’s more fun this way,” Ingrid said, before breaking out into laughter again. “I think it was nearly two years ago now? Annette wanted me to deliver a letter to Felix cause she was worried the Empire was intercepting his.”

Sylvain’s mouth dropped open as he looked back to Felix, who stubbornly refused to look at him and instead reached behind Ingrid for the half empty whiskey bottle and took a swig straight from it.

“Why wouldn’t you reply to her?” he asked. “You’re going to chase her off at this rate.”

Sylvain watched the half bitten smile creeping across Ingrid’s face out of the corner of his eye and froze. Ingrid caught his gaze and nodded once forcing his eyes to bulge as he mouthed a shocked ‘no’ to her.

Ingrid nodded again, smile growing, and Sylvain lurched over Ingrid’s legs so he could grab the material of Felix’s coat. “She’s still sending you letters?!”

Felix snarled, audibly this time, and yanked his shoulder away from Sylvain’s grip. “Fuck off.”

Sylvain sat back, shaking his head in amazement. “You haven’t written back to a single one of her letters? In two years? And she’s still sending them to you?”

That familiar lump of guilt formed in Felix’s gut and he felt his shoulders sag slightly. “I tried, I just-” He huffed, frustration broiling within him. “I don’t know why I can’t.”

Sylvain was struck quiet by the show of emotion in Felix’s voice. He knew better than most that Felix, despite popular belief, did have emotions, it was just that he preferred not to let them show. A hand landed on Felix’s shoulder, smaller than the one who grabbed him earlier and Felix turned around to see Ingrid smiling softly at him.

“I’m sure she’d just be happy to hear from you Felix,” Ingrid said. “She’d hardly care if you only wrote a single line.”

But that wasn’t the problem. Felix seethed as he thought about all the times he had sat down to reply to Annette. Sure, at first he’d had trouble putting anything at all to paper but these days-

These days he couldn’t stop writing.

If he wrote to Annette now he’d let her know everything. Every problem that was going on in his life, every thought that crossed his mind. Every thought of her.

So no, he couldn’t send those letters. Just keep them in that box, under his bed, and hope that somewhere out there, there was a version of him that wasn’t so emotionally stunted he couldn’t even tell the girl he liked that he was alive.

But he didn’t say any of that. He’d rather die than let Ingrid know that he did write to Annette. It’d be worse than this entire experience, which was already pretty horrific to be truly honest.

Felix swung his legs around and shuffled back till he hit the bottom of the garden bench, mirroring Sylvain’s position. Then he raised the bottle to his lips and took another mouthful.

He passed the bottle to Ingrid, who eagerly took a drink even though her glass was still half full, and then she handed it to Sylvain and laid back down, her legs swung over Sylvain’s lap and her head cushioned by Felix’s thigh.

“No point letting her know I’m alive when I could die tomorrow,” Felix muttered, determinedly not looking down at Ingrid’s wide green eyes as she gazed up at him. “I’ll let her know I’m alive when I’m sure that’s not going to change.”

Sylvain snorted, all the humor gone from the sound, replaced with bitterness. He raised the bottle. “Well then. Here’s to making it to your 22nd.”

Ingrid raised her glass. “Here’s to making it to the end of the war.”

It seemed just a little bit too optimistic for the three of them, but for a painful moment Felix wanted it. Wanted to see the end of this war, see his friends truly happy and not risking their lives every day.

And maybe, when it was all over, he could live his life too.

Felix’s head jerked in a short nod as he gazed at his two oldest friends. The two people that knew him best in this world, just as he knew them. He raised his glass and thought of strawberry blonde hair and a girl who he wanted to know just as badly. 

“To the end of the war.”

He could drink to that.

**Author's Note:**

> Title from Old Friends by Ben Rector (LISTEN TO IT AND CRY)
> 
> So, I got sidetracked while doing Camp Nano and spat this out as a scrapped scene from another fic. Hope you all enjoy it. I leave you with my head cannons of the Blue Lions and their drinking habits, ranked from best to worst drinkers.
> 
> Sylvain - is the best, purely because he drinks the most. Gotta medicate all that self loathing somehow.  
> Mercedes - is 22 at the start of the game. Guys, come on. She's the mum of the group no matter the sobriety.  
> Dedue - doesn't drink a lot but always appears deceptively sober even when he does.  
> Ingrid/ Felix - they're both competitive drunks and will go shot for shot until they both pass out. No one knows who's better out of the two.  
> Dimitri - ya'll know this boy has two drinks and starts crying.  
> Ashe - is baby. A one drink boy and we all know it.  
> Annette - has a single drink and is immediately calling for karaoke. Always regrets it in the mornings and has the worst hangovers out of all the Blue Lions by far.


End file.
